


and they were soulmates

by infinitefire



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (as usual), F/M, Promises, Semi-Canon Compliant, Sexual Tension, Slow-ish burn, Soulmate AU, and for somewhat excessive swearing, but it gets resolved!, can you tell im still not over a question of price?, canon-typical levels of swearing I guess?, no beta we die like men, rated M for sexual content in later chapters, these two are so stubborn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23438869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitefire/pseuds/infinitefire
Summary: As far as Calanthe was concerned, Destiny was a little bitch and could go fuck itself.Unfortunately for her, Destiny was a little bitch that refused to go fuck itself and instead did everything in its power to get Calanthe to fuck her soulmate.
Relationships: Calanthe Fiona Riannon/Eist Tuirseach
Comments: 25
Kudos: 57





	1. 1246

**Author's Note:**

> (oh my god, they were soulmates.)
> 
> wasn't gonna post this until i was done writing the whole thing cause i don't trust myself not to abandon things, but every time i refresh the calanthe/eist tag and see no new fics, i think, 'where are all the new calantheist fics?' and then immediately answer my own question with 'they're in your wip folder' which is true but i am tired of being called out by my own fuckin self so please enjoy chapter one

**1246**

The first time you touched your soulmate—skin to skin—it left a mark. A mark that shone golden at the point of contact and never faded, not even in death. Some people were meant to be in each other’s lives, marked out for one another by Destiny, and as soon as a physical touch set that in motion, no force could break the bond between soulmates or erase the mark soulmates left on each other.

Poets must have found there was something very poetic about the concept, because all the books of legends and all the legends not yet in books seemed to be about, or at the very least, mention, soulmates. There were tales of people who were so repulsed by the idea of soulmates that they refused to touch anyone for fear that their skin would turn gold. People who found their soulmates and lost them then found another, leaving them with more than one mark; people who found more than one soulmate and loved them all at once, some whose soulmates were soulmates and some whose soulmates were not soulmates. People who had no soulmates and lived out their lives in bitterness; people who had no soulmates and still lived lives full of love; people who spent their lives searching for their soulmates and found no one. Childhood friends whose golden marks appeared when they were young, who were always expected to fall in love and marry but never did, fell in love with other people but always remained inseperable friends. Rivals who were revealed as soulmates when they were fighting with bare fists, who never fell in love but developed a mutual admiration in old age when they realized just how much they had shaped each other's lives. Soulmates who fell so desperately in love they refused to touch one another for fear that their skin would not turn gold, who loved each other until death but never touched, whose bodies were opened after they died to reveal identical golden hearts.

The stories were all very romantic, which was all well and good, but Queen Calanthe did not have time for romance, nor did she care for it. She was, after all, a queen; marriages were purely for the sake of convenience, politics, and producing an heir, and affairs were simply a means for pleasure. Her late husband, though a friend, had been nothing more to her. When he had first touched her, she had secretly felt relieved that he was not her soulmate, not because she disliked him, but because she disliked the idea of her husband being her soulmate—it might plant the idea in his head that he was destined to be King of Cintra, might make him drunk on power, might make him feel he was entitled to more power than Calanthe. Soulmates, she had decided, had too much power, and she did not want one.

But despite not wanting a soulmate, Calanthe did not shy away from touch. Avoiding Destiny only made it run its course more surely, that much she knew from the legends and myths, which always had a grain of truth. And fearing Destiny gave it power. Calanthe was the Lioness of Cintra. She had earned that name, and she would not cower in fear before some abstract concept that could only show itself by painting gold on people’s skin, could not look her in the face and state its demands.

It seemed like perfectly good reasoning.

That is, up until she met her soulmate.

* * *

It was the longest day of the year, and the capital of Cintra was overflowing with guests for the midsummer festival, some who had travelled from other parts of the kingdom, some who were formally invited by the Queen from foreign lands, some odd folks of mysterious origins who probably came for the ale. The celebration would last all day, from sunrise to sunset, with festivities starting in the town and flowing into the castle courtyard, and a banquet hosted by the Queen herself in the great hall. The herald announced guests as they came in, starting just before dawn and for a few hours after that, until the last of them—the guests from Skellige—arrived.

“Eist Tuirseach, Jarl of Skellige!”

Eist Tuirseach bowed deeply before Calanthe. “Your Majesty,” he said. “My deepest regrets for our late arrival. We were delayed by unfavorable winds.”

Calanthe waved off the apology. “I have heard great things about you, Jarl of Skellige. I am certain you did everything in your power to ensure your arrival was as timely as possible. It is a pleasure to welcome you, honorable Eist Tuirseach, and whomever you have brought, to Cintra.”

“The pleasure is mine, your Majesty,” said Eist, extending a gloved hand. “I have often heard of your great beauty, and I see now that the rumors do not do you justice. I am sure the same holds true for all I have heard about your wisdom as a ruler, your benevolence, and your skill as a warrior.”

Calanthe smiled, brilliantly, in a way that could have rivaled the sun, and placed her bare hand in his. He pressed his lips to her knuckles. 

When he pulled away, the sunlight streaming through the arched windows glinted brightly off her fingers, and his lips were smeared with gold.

“Fuck,” whispered Calanthe under her breath.

* * *

More than anything, Calanthe was angry at Destiny for giving her a soulmate. Who did Destiny think it was, constantly trying to interfere with her life like this? First, Destiny got involved in Pavetta’s fate—though that was entirely her idiot husband’s fault for claiming the Law of Surprise—and perhaps the fabled hedgehog man had not come for her yet, but that did not stop the heavy cloud of what was yet to come from constantly hanging over Calanthe. Now, Destiny just _had_ to screw over Calanthe too.

Well, Calanthe wasn’t having it. As far as she was concerned, Destiny was a little bitch and could go fuck itself.

Unfortunately for her, Destiny was a little bitch that refused to go fuck itself and instead did everything in its power to get Calanthe to fuck her soulmate.

Calanthe tried very hard to keep things under control. As a courtesy, she invited Eist to walk with her in the gardens, where she could privately inform him of her opinions on the matter and make sure there were no expectations of any kind of relationship between them. As a courtesy, Eist accepted her invitation.

“What do you think of soulmates, Tuirseach?” she asked, eyeing him carefully.

“To tell you the truth, I had hoped not to find one.”

“Good. I have no desire for a soulmate either.”

“We have not been given a choice in the matter.”

“Have we not?”

“Your hand and my lips turned gold when they touched. Destiny has made itself clear that—” he sighed, and her annoyance was abated slightly by the evidence that despite his defense of Destiny, he truly did not want this any more than she did—“we are soulmates.”

“Destiny.” Calanthe scoffed. “What should it matter that our touching left gold on my fingers and your lips? I don’t want a fucking soulmate and neither do you. If Destiny wants us together, it needs to try much harder than that to convince me.”

A sudden wave of desire washed over her, strange and stronger than anything she’d ever felt. For a moment, she forgot to breathe, she was so entranced by the sight of Eist. The vision of him was striking. He had the body of a warrior and eyes like the stormy seas; the sunlight cast defining shadows on his face and illuminated the golden buttons on his tunic and his now-golden lips, and, fleetingly, Calanthe wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips. The royal gardens, picturesque and meticulously kept, made a perfect backdrop, and they were in a somewhat secluded spot, which made it all the more romantic.

Calanthe quickly snapped herself out of it. She turned her head, feigning interest in a flower, to hide the faint blush that had appeared on her cheeks. The Lioness of Cintra did not _blush_ , nor did she think such disgustingly poetic thoughts (about soulmates, about her soulmate, about anyone, or at all). 

“You’re right, of course.”

When she turned her head back to face him, the same dizzying desire came over her again, but she pushed it firmly to the back of her mind, smiled, and said, “Of course. Now, I propose that we return to the feast and pretend this never happened. I plan to wear gloves from now on, and should you also wish to hide your mark, I suggest you paint your lips. I can have one of my handmaidens help you, if you like.”

“Thank you, my Queen, but that will not be necessary.”

“No? You want to publicly display your golden lips?”

“I did not want a soulmate. But I will not hide from Destiny.”

“Very well. But I ask that you do not go around telling everyone who your soulmate is. I would prefer to keep this private.”

“If that is what you wish.”

“It is.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, the air between them charged with some mutual feeling, a strange combination of understanding and curiosity. Both had expressed the same perspective on soulmates, yet it was not a perspective shared by many, and to find someone who shared it was rare enough to be intriguing.

Of course, given what that perspective was, and given their current situation, neither of them were in much of a hurry to have an extended conversation about it. That would open up a window for them to develop feelings, which were terribly inconvenient and exactly what they were trying to avoid.

The curiosity was strong, though…

“Before we return to the party,” said Eist, “may I ask something?”

She looked at him curiously. “Ask.”

“If you don’t want a soulmate, why do you not cover your hands?”

“I do not fear destiny.” Her eyes flickered down to his gloved hands. “Considering it is summertime, I assume you wear gloves to avoid this sort of thing. So why did you kiss my hand when it was bare?”

Eist simply stood there in silence.

When he failed to give her an answer, Calanthe turned and left.

* * *

For the next few months, Calanthe, to her relief, heard nothing of Eist Tuirseach. Between that, her nearly non-stop duties as Queen keeping her busy, and the finely-crafted gloves she began wearing at all times, she could almost forget that she had the inconvenience of a soulmate looming over her. She hated to ignore Destiny almost as much as she hated Destiny itself—if Destiny had to give her a soulmate, then she would not wait passively and allow Destiny to bring them together—but she was no idiot. She knew the stories of kings who did everything in their power to prevent an unfavorable prophecy, only for their actions to be what brought about the prophecy in the end. That was how Destiny worked: the harder you tried to avoid it, the more inevitable it became. And Calanthe would _not_ repeat the mistakes of _men_. By the gods, she would make her own damn mistakes, go down in history—no, in legend—for her own dumb decisions, and give the kings and queens of the future some new lessons to learn. (Mostly the queens, probably, seeing as in her experience, kings were fools and didn’t learn from shit.)

Unless, of course, it worked. Obviously, that was preferrable, and in that case, she’d still go down in legend and set an example for the kings and queens of the future. (Again, probably mostly the queens.)

Either way, she would not blindly follow the mistakes of kings past by actively fighting Destiny, and actively pursuing it—well, that would be even more idiotic. So if the only way she stood a chance against Destiny, the only way she stood a chance of being an original fucking story rather than the one of the same old ones that had been told again and again with different names in different tongues, the only way she could possibly avoid this whole soulmate situation, was to sit and wait and do nothing, then so fucking be it.

But, she decided, she would not be passive about it. Lying in wait worked for Penelope when she was avoiding her suitors, and she was anything but passive. True, suitors were not the same as Destiny, and far less powerful, but there was a first time for everything. True, lying in wait only worked for so long and it only ended well because Penelope’s husband came home to slay them all in the end, but Calanthe had her own fucking sword, so Odysseus and Roegner’s rotting dead body could suck it. So could Destiny, for that matter.

Avoiding one’s problems was generally not a good strategy in life, but in this specific case, Calanthe thought it was working very, very, very well.

Then, she received a letter from Skellige.

A letter from Eist Tuirseach of Skellige, no less.

Fortunately, most of its contents were strictly business-related, something about ships and logistics. Calanthe huffed out a sigh of relief and was about to tuck the letter away and continue going about life as if she did not have a soulmate when she realized there was a seccond page stuck to the back. She pulled it loose to find it almost entirely filled with a post-script. A sense of dread filled her again, but she kept reading, hoping it was simply more business that Eist had forgotten to mention in the first part of his letter.

It was not.

_P.S.: I have been thinking a great deal about what you asked me when we met this summer. You do not want anything to do with soulmates, and I imagine you do not want to think about it either, which I understand and respect. But since you answered my question, I feel I owe you an answer to yours, should you still want to know why I kissed your hand._

Calanthe slammed the letter back down on the table, breathing heavily. She was grateful that she was in her personal study and no one was around to see her get this agitated by a mere letter. It was only a letter. Only a letter, she repeated to herself as she sighed, trying to shake away the nerves and reason with herself.

This was a letter from her soulmate, whom she wanted nothing to do with unless strictly necessary. She did not have to read this. All necessary information had been conveyed in the main part of the letter. This part was only there to satisfy her curiosity. And—she eyed the last sentence of the first paragraph warily—only if she was still curious. “Should you still want to know,” he had written.

She had an out. He did not necessarily expect her to read this. She did not have to read this. She did not want to read this. She did not want to know. She did not want to read this. She would not read this. She would fold up the letter, put it back in its envelope, maybe toss the second page into the fireplace, go about the rest of her business for the day, and go about the rest of her life as if she did not have a soulmate, would never have a soulmate, had never had a soulmate, had never met Eist Tuirseach, had never met anyone who had as little interest in a soulmate as she had and yet was not so full of bitterness that it seemed to ooze from their very being and drip onto the floors, had never wondered if there even was anyone like that, had never wondered—

Oh, who was she kidding? She absolutely wanted to know. She picked up the letter again.

_At risk of sounding like a fool—and you are welcome to call me one, though you certainly do not need a man’s permission to call him a fool—_

Calanthe snorted. “Fool,” she muttered under her breath.

_—I did not believe such contact would be enough for soulmate marks to appear._

“Fool,” she muttered again.

_I know someone who touched his soulmate’s hair before touching her skin, and the mark only appeared when he touched her skin. I intended to brush my lips over your hand, keeping some distance but creating the illusion of contact by letting my beard touch your fingers. I had done so with other women’s hands and had no reason to believe there was direct contact. I see now that this was a foolish assumption to make, and I invite you once again to call me a fool._

“You are a fool, Eist Tuirseach,” Calanthe whispered into the silence.

_However, if you remember it as I do, you know that the touch of my lips was not as gentle as I am describing. I wish I could blame an unsteady hand, but unfortunately, if I am to give you the truth, I must further make a fool of myself in your eyes._

_I have avoided touching people skin-to-skin for fear of finding a soulmate because I prefer the freedom of the sea to, say, setting down roots and starting a family. I spend most of my time at sea, and that is how I like it. As Jarl, I have stability and certainty in that lifestyle. As Queen of Cintra, you spend most all of your time in Cintra. Somehow, I thought that with our lives so vastly different, and with so few opportunities for us to meet, there was no chance that we would be soulmates,_

She laughed bitterly at the irony.

_and I decided to kiss your hand properly because—forgive me for saying so—I was enchanted by your presence and your radiant beauty._

Calanthe tried to hold back a smile at the compliment, but the muscles in her face betrayed her, and she ended up with a strange sort of grimace.

_Clearly, Destiny has made a fool of me._

Indeed, it had, thought Calanthe.

_I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience having a soulmate has caused you. I have considered asking my brother to re-dub me, so that my title might be changed from Eist Tuirseach the Honorable to Eist Tuirseach the Honorably Foolish._

She let out a laugh, then caught herself, suddenly remembering that she did not want to laugh. She tossed the page carelessly back onto her desk, sighed, shook her head.

Having a soulmate did not _cause_ her inconvenience. Having a soulmate _was_ an inconvenience. And her soulmate was outright admitting that it was his fault. It would be so easy to blame him for this—all the reasons to were right there in front of her—and yet there was something refreshing in the easy way he called himself a fool. Most men would sooner shit themselves than call themselves fools, they were so caught up in their pride; some men called themselves fools deliberately and excessively as a tactic to manipulate people, so that they were underestimated or forgiven more easily for foolish deeds. But Eist called himself a fool with little hesitation, and while it was a bit excessive, he only seemed to do so when there was reason to. He could recognize his own foolishness, and Calanthe couldn’t help but appreciate that. It was almost charming.

No. No. Absolutely not. What was she thinking? She did not think her soulmate was charming. (She did, but she refused to admit it to herself.) Oh, fuck. Damn it. Ignoring this problem had been going so well. (It hadn’t, really, but Calanthe had convinced herself that it had and was still stuck firmly in that conviction.)

Why did her soulmate have to be so _nice_ and _understanding_? All of this was his fault, he admitted to it and Calanthe was happy to agree with him, but then he had to go and fucking apologize. Why did he have to fucking apologize? They had been strangers before this, and so it would have been easy to either hold a grudge forever or forget about it and move on if they were never going to see each other again, but there he was, fucking apologizing, like there was any sort of relationship between them that he had to mend, and jokingly calling himself a fool. It made her want to laugh and have a friendly fucking conversation with him, and it was fucking infuriating. 

Calanthe shut her eyes. Took a deep breath. Tried to clear her head.

Being angry at Eist was an appealing option, but risked straining relations with Skellige if things escalated too far, which she was not in a position for. Being attracted to Eist was not an option at all. She would have to go on with her original plan of pretending she did not have a soulmate, and blocking out any and all emotions that got in the way of that.

It just… might be a bit harder than she initially thought.


	2. 1247

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not expect to update so soon but here i am i guess!

**1247**

Eist Tuirseach found himself in Cintra unusually often in the first few months of the year after he met Calanthe. It was entirely a coincidence; his reasons to be in Cintra had nothing to do with soulmates whatsoever. But considering that his soulmate was the most drop-dead gorgeous (literally—she was gorgeous and could make you drop dead) woman he had ever seen… well, he was not exactly complaining.

Not too much, anyway. The fact that his soulmate wanted nothing to do with soulmates posed somewhat of an issue, as did the fact that he was not too keen on the idea of having a soulmate himself, or at least had not been until recently.

But the pull he felt towards Calanthe was irresistible. And that was the biggest problem.

The first time Eist ended up in Cintra that year, he did not see her for most of the week he was there. Most of his time was spent on his ship and at the port, where his business was, and Calanthe’s business, he assumed, kept her at her castle. He thought about her, though, more often than he would have liked to admit. It was difficult to avoid thinking about her when he was in Cintra: the golden lips he made no effort to hide got him a number of stares and questions which naturally made him think of her, whereas most people on Skellige (at least the ones he was acquainted with) had done their staring by now and knew not to ask questions; every time he saw a banner with the Cintran crest, which was quite often, the lions reminded him of her, the Lioness, and the gold reminded him of that first glimpse of her fingers when he pulled his lips away. 

He even considered making a trip to the castle to see her, but thought better of it. Calanthe had made it clear when they had walked in the gardens that she had no interest in a soulmate. Her response to his letter had been strictly business, and had given no indication that she had even read the personal addendum. Somehow, he doubted she had. He tried not to let that disappoint him. There had been no signs of bitterness in the tone of her reply; it was all formalities, and from what little he knew of her, he knew she knew how to weave subtle indicators of her opinion into her words. And the lack of hostility would have to be enough. Going to the castle simply to see her without any official reason to do so might ruin that, so he satisfied himself with the knowledge that they were not enemies and distracted himself with the business that was the actual reason he was in Cintra.

By his second to last day in the city, he had finally begun to feel more at ease with the idea of spending six days there without seeing the woman whom he was constantly surrounded by reminders of, and was confident in his ability to get done what needed to get done and then go home to Skellige without causing any unnecessary soulmate drama or letting the environment affect his mood to the point where someone would notice.

Conveniently enough, it was also around this time that Destiny apparently decided his entire life was a joke and he was not allowed to be within a hundred miles of his soulmate without running into her.

Queen Calanthe arrived at the docks with much less fanfare than he would have expected. The lack of trumpets surprised him—he nearly jumped when he caught sight of the figure draped in lavish clothing with a group of royal guards following behind her. The delicate golden lines of the embroidery on the Queen’s cloak paled in comparison with the heavy golden plates of the guards’ armor, especially with how easily the sunlight reflected off metal on the clear winter day, yet somehow, the gold on Calanthe’s clothing seemed much more striking to him. Perhaps because despite being shorter than her guards, her presence towered over them, her posture regal and commanding and distinctive compared to the military uniform of the guards’. Or perhaps because she was Calanthe, his soulmate, and he could not forget that underneath the gloves she was certainly wearing, there was a mark that matched the thread, a mark he was responsible for.

Eist had an inkling it was the latter, but he told himself it was the former, out of respect and a healthy dose of fear for the woman.

He did not delude himself into thinking he could avoid Calanthe once he saw her at the docks. Although that had been his original plan for getting through a week in Cintra—if he didn’t interact with her, he didn’t have to think about her, or the wild conflict between his desire to remain free of a soulmate, free to travel the seas as he liked, and his desire for… well,  _ her _ (a desire he had not exactly come to terms with yet)—avoiding her at this point was possibly the worst thing he could do. If you got caught avoiding the Queen, or if you ran away at the sight of her, that usually meant you had done something wrong and/or had something to hide. If Calanthe knew Eist was there and found him trying to avoid her, she would have him thrown in the dungeons and brutally questioned, and although the thought of her throwing him in the dungeons was… strangely arousing… Eist rather liked the idea of keeping all of his body parts.

So, when Calanthe began walking in his direction, Eist did not turn to head the other way, and when she approached him, he bowed and made eye contact.

“The honorable Eist Tuirseach.” She seemed to be searching for something in his expression, eyes moving slowly across the lines of his face, carefully analyzing the shadows. He thought he saw them linger at his lips, thought he noticed a slight downward twitch of her brow, as if she was surprised that he still chose not to paint over the gold. (He had considered it, briefly, but then he had caught sight of his sister making a face when she thought no one was watching at how the red color on her lips had transferred onto her goblet as soon as she had taken a sip, and Eist had decided that explaining to everyone that the placement of his soulmate mark was nobody else’s damn business was far easier than explaining to everyone why his lip color came off onto any container he drank from, which probably would have ended up with him explaining that the placement of his soulmate mark was nobody else’s damn business anyway.)

Calanthe’s eyes moved back to his and stayed there for a moment. Eist felt his heartbeat speed up. What emotion was she looking for in his face? What happened when she found it?

Apparently, whatever she was looking for, she was satisfied with what she found (or didn’t find), because she smiled, almost imperceptibly. “Or is it ‘the honorably foolish’ now?”

Eist could not think of how properly to respond to that. He realized, a second too late, that “Only to you” may not have been the wisest choice.

Calanthe did not reply, but her smile grew, just a bit.

* * *

Calanthe came to the docks the next morning, too.

She did not approach him, but as his ship left the harbor, he chanced a look back at her, only expecting to catch a glimpse of her backside retreating into the distance, and saw to his surprise that she was staring right back at him. The distance between them was quickly growing, and he could not quite make out the look in her eyes, but if he was not mistaken, there was an almost-smile on her face and an intensity in her expression that made his heart race.

The fleeting moment passed, and suddenly Calanthe was nothing more than a blurred outline of a woman on the horizon. Eist quickly turned his attention back to what he was doing before any of his crewmates could catch him distracted. She had been watching his ship, not him, he reasoned, and the look he thought he saw her give him must have been a trick of the light. Everything looked softer, more romantic this early in the morning.

* * *

On Eist’s second visit to Cintra, he did not have the option of trying to avoid his soulmate, because he was there on business with the Queen, who was his soulmate. (Really, it was King Bran’s business with the Queen, and King Bran had sent Eist, among others, and Eist could not explain to his brother that the reason he shouldn’t go was because he didn’t want to see his soulmate. Not without telling him who his soulmate was, and Calanthe had requested that Eist not tell anyone. Besides, there was no telling whether Bran would take that as a reason not to send Eist or encouragement to send Eist this time and every other time he had to send someone to Cintra as an ambassador.)

It went about as well as you would expect. Which is to say, no major disasters, but by the end of the visit, both Calanthe and Eist felt like they were losing their minds. Not that either of them would show it, because they seemed to be competing for the title of Most Stubborn Person on the Continent, If Not the World. Calanthe, who refused to admit anything regarding feelings even to herself, was winning. What was she winning? Absolutely nothing, other than the very un-satisfying satisfaction of defying Destiny.

Eist was hardly any less stubborn. Doing business with Calanthe meant getting to know her in one way or another, and the more he got to know her, the more he seemed to like her. The fact that he would admit to himself that he liked her—as a person, as a queen, even as a potential friend—was the only thing that put him behind Calanthe in the entirely nonexistent competition for Most Stubborn. That he was perhaps beginning to develop even a hint of romantic or sexual feelings for her… that he would not admit to himself.

But it was getting harder and harder to deny.

Whenever Calanthe spoke, she commanded the room so wholly that no one could help but listen. And she was intelligent, as well as funny; Eist found he enjoyed hearing what she had to say, especially the witty asides and cutting remarks towards men who insulted her or pretended to know better than her when they clearly did not. He even found himself amused rather than insulted when those sharp comments were directed towards him. When that happened, there was always a moment when her eyes would meet his, and he would be arrested by the boldness of her stare, and for a split second that he might have only imagined her eyes would flicker down to his lips; one time, he thought he saw her tongue dart out to lick her own, and briefly, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her, whether kissing her lips would produce the same strange warmth he vaguely remembered feeling when he kissed her hand, whether she had in fact licked her lips and whether she was thinking the same thing—

Every time his thoughts began to stray in that direction, though, he shut them down, reminding himself that this was dangerous territory. This was his soulmate. He was willing to shy away from Destiny by avoiding any sort of relationship with Calanthe while they were both in a place where having one—especially with a soulmate—was horribly inconvenient. But fucking with Destiny by treating the situation as if she were any other woman who was not his soulmate? No.

You fuck with Destiny, Destiny fucks with you. Eist knew that much.

* * *

“This is the third time I’ve seen you in my kingdom in as many months,” said Calanthe when she and Eist inevitably encountered each other on Eist’s next visit to Cintra. (Destiny really could not give him a break—he was only stopping in Cintra for half a day and a night before continuing on a longer journey; he had only been going to get a drink with a few of his men but of course it had to be at the  _ exact  _ same time Calanthe was riding through town.)

She dismounted her horse and approached him, and he could not shake the strange feeling that he was in some kind of trouble. “You’d better have actual business here,” she said to him with a lowered voice. “If I find out you have ulterior motives that have anything to do with this—” she indicated her fingers, and though they were gloved, Eist knew exactly what she was referring to. Her sentence was finished with a glare that clearly meant, ‘just because you’re my soulmate doesn’t mean I won’t personally slice your head off.’

“Your Majesty,” he began, smiling slightly. He was dimly aware of their  _ very  _ close proximity, and he knew that when someone was this close, one had to be careful what one said with one’s eyes. He wasn’t entirely sure what his were saying, but it couldn’t be anything Calanthe wanted to hear.

“I would not dream of wasting time and resources to make a special trip purely for the idea of a courtship in which clearly, neither of us desire one,” he finished, trying to sound as genuine as possible to make up for what his eyes must have been giving away.

“Clearly,” Calanthe repeated, seemingly satisfied, and re-mounted her horse, ignoring the hand offered to help her into the saddle. 

The horse’s footsteps faded into the distance. Eist exhaled, not having realized he was holding his breath. This woman…

Yes, he was definitely in some sort of trouble. His soulmate was a woman who somehow made death threats look sexy and was just starting to offer them to him. She wanted nothing to do with him—or so she said, though sometimes he thought her repeatedly approaching him to start a conversation about how she wanted nothing to do with him indicated otherwise—and he just could not seem to avoid her. And the more often he saw her, the harder it was to stop thinking about her when they parted ways.

This situation was going to cause some problems.

It came as a relief to them both when Eist had no more business that brought him to Cintra for the rest of the year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! i feel like this chapter was not very interesting but i promise the next one will be better ;)
> 
> also if u wanna scream at me about this or about anything my tumblr is firesofthestars


	3. 1248

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at last, here it is, The Chapter Where Things Actually Happen!
> 
> for an enhanced reading experience, please consider listening to "mamma mia" by abba on repeat while reading if you are able to*.
> 
> *i was not. it was too funny

**1248**

On Eist’s next visit to Cintra, his meeting with Calanthe was not a coincidence. He had hardly been there an hour before two of her men approached him, informing him that the Queen wanted to see him and that they would be taking him to her immediately.

“Eist Tuirseach, Jarl of Skellige,” said Calanthe, lips curving up into a smile. “I haven’t seen your face around Cintra in some time.”

“A year,” Eist supplied. “Did you miss me?”

“No.” She smiled warmly.

“Then, pardon me for asking, but why invite me to the castle?”

Calanthe laughed. “I wanted to know whether you came to Cintra because you missed me.”

“The fact that you wanted to know suggests that you missed me too,” he grinned.

“So you are here because you missed me?”

“No. Did I say that?”

“You admitted that you missed me.”

“Well, perhaps I did.”

Her smile grew. “Good to see you, Tuirseach.”

“Good to see you too, your Majesty.”

* * *

As soon as Eist left, Calanthe cursed herself. What the hell was she doing?  _ Flirting  _ with her  _ soulmate _ ?

There had been no reason for her to summon him in the first place, but seeing the Skelligen ship in the harbor had filled her with a rush of… something. Fear, perhaps, that his arrival marked the point where she could no longer hide from Destiny and that this visit would somehow lead to her being forced back into the submissive role of a woman in a relationship with a man, or—despite how badly she wished it wasn’t—excitement. It had been a year since she had last seen Eist, and though his mere presence drove her insane in ways she did not want to comprehend, she had almost missed the insanity. She could only entertain herself for so long with the average stupidity of men, especially when it always fell to her to intervene when things got out of hand. And especially when they were always so predictable, always behaving in the same ways. It got old quickly. Whatever it was between her and Eist, it was new, it was a challenge, it felt like a fight where there was actually a chance she would lose—and that was both what frightened her and what excited her.

She’d summoned him out of the sudden, desperate need to be in control. The urge was to tell him to get the fuck out of her kingdom, but that would not bode well for relations with Skellige. So she had done something reckless, needing something to remind herself that she was a Queen, she was the Lioness of Cintra and she was the one in control here.

And then she had lost it. 

Damn it all, he just had to be fucking handsome, didn’t he? Of all people, her soulmate just had to be the one person whom she might actually  _ want.  _ And she couldn’t insult him without risking a political mess. But how else was she supposed to deal with having feelings?

Fuck Destiny.

* * *

It was summer again, and the with the overwhelming heat, the perfect shades of green on the trees, the way the sunlight shone through the cloudless sky and hit the distinctly Cintran landscape, things seemed eerily reminiscent of the fateful day when Eist had kissed Calanthe’s hand and revealed them to be soulmates.

When she heard the door to her room open, Calanthe bit down on the instinct to turn and face the person who came in, knowing very well who it was, and knowing very well that as soon as she set eyes on him, she would be arrested by the sight of him, by that feeling she always got in her chest every time she saw him, every time he spoke, that awful, awful feeling she couldn’t get rid of (though she wanted to) and couldn’t get enough of. She braced herself for that feeling, and yet it still caught her off guard.

“Your Majesty,” said Eist, “you wanted to see me… in your bedchamber. I didn’t know if you meant with or without clothes.”

Calanthe caught his eye, and the joking glint made her want to laugh and respond with some equally ridiculous flirtation and see if maybe things would go in the direction of his suggestive comment and—fuck, no, she wasn’t doing this; she’d asked to see him for a reason and it had nothing to do with her inconvenient fucking feelings. She quickly hardened her gaze into a glare, which may not have turned out as harsh as she intended.

“This is business, Tuirseach.”

“I see. Good thing I wore clothes, then.”

She rolled her eyes. “Have a seat.”

He sat in the chair she had indicated, and looked at her expectantly.

“Your nephew, Crach an Craite, is unmarried, yes?”

“Yes.”

“He is not engaged?”

“No.” Eist was beginning to look confused.

“And you have been acting as his father?”

“I have,” he said slowly.

“Good. I want to arrange a marriage between him and Pavetta.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to arrange a marriage between your nephew and my daughter, Pavetta.”

“I… your Majesety?” Eist managed, still looking confused.

“Let me explain. My daughter turns fifteen next year, and, as is custom, there will be a banquet at which suitors may seek her hand, and by the end of the night, she will be betrothed to one of them. Now, seeing as I have no husband and no desire to remarry, whomever Pavetta marries will automatically become King of Cintra. For my kingdom’s sake and my daughter’s, I can’t base this decision on an evening’s worth of first impressions. You’ve brought Crach with you to Cintra several times now. I have met him. I can tell that he is a good young man. He is also of very high status, and a marriage between him and Pavetta would produce an unstoppable alliance between our kingdoms. Do you agree?”

“If your goal is an alliance with Skellige,” said Eist carefully, “you could marry me.”

“Do you even listen?” she hissed, slamming her fist down on the table. She shook her head. “You really are a fool.”

“We’ve established this,” he smiled. Calanthe rolled her eyes. He turned serious again. “I mean only for the sake of convenience. You could remain Queen after Pavetta marries, and since I have no interest in the business of running a kingdom, you would have full control, as you do now. And if you let me travel freely, I will be completely out of your hair.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why not?”

“You haven’t said what’s in it for you.”

“A powerful alliance.”

“Which benefits us both, and could be just as easily formed by Pavetta marrying Crach. Your disdain for marriage is known even outside Skellige—why the sudden change of heart?”

Eist hesitated before muttering, “People often say I ought to settle down. I’m tired of hearing it.”

“That’s a weak excuse.”

“There is also the matter of Destiny.”

“What are you saying? That I should marry you because you’re my soulmate and we’re ‘meant to be together’?” Her voice dripped with bitterness.

“No!” Eist said a little too quickly. “You may disagree, but I see this as the perfect arrangement: both of us want a certain freedom that marriage might afford, but neither of us want marriage because being bound to another person takes away more freedom than it gives.” His voice softened. “Neither of us want a soulmate, either. What if Destiny put us together not because we were meant to be lovers, but because with the ways we wish to live, we do not fit in this world on our own, but we fit perfectly together?”

Calanthe looked at him curiously.

It annoyed her to no end, but he had a point.

Before she could catch herself, she wondered whether they fit perfectly together in other ways… 

She bit down hard on her lip and clenched her fist under the table to stop that train of thought. Damn him and his stupid fucking—ugh,  _ everything _ ! 

“I will not remarry,” she insisted, voice quiet but firm. “I will not allow myself to be overshadowed by a man again.”

“I would never overshadow you.” He held her gaze, his eyes silently conveying the seriousness and sincerity of his words. “I promise.”

She almost wanted to believe him. But she had long since learned never to trust vague promises. And this one carried the dangers of politics, the dangers of marriage, the dangers of soulmates, and the dangers of Destiny all in one. Moreover, believing him—or even wanting to believe him—carried the implication that she had some sort of fondness for him, and thus carried the dangers of the heart.

“My answer is no,” she declared.

* * *

It was only a couple of weeks before Eist ended up in Cintra again. He wasn’t there to see her or anything, Calanthe knew that, but that didn’t stop her from reacting when he arrived.

Her feelings were mixed: she was angry, angry that she had to look at his fucking face again and deal with everything  _ that  _ made her feel, angry at Destiny for giving her a soulmate and causing this entire mess she was in; but she was also pleased to see him again so soon, pleased to have him around where there was a chance she might hear some of his stupid jokes or comments that were almost as irritating as they were harmless and were only funny due to the ridiculous extent to which they were  _ not  _ funny, pleased that his presence might provide her with some entertainment other than the miserable failures of men (which tended to get old quickly) and the mediocre music of that bard Pavetta liked who always dressed like a slut (which she did not mind) and sang about love (which she did mind, very much). And although she tried very hard to ignore the latter set of emotions, focus on her resolve to ignore Destiny, stop herself from blowing this whole soulmate ordeal out of proportion, she was, in the end, betrayed by her own fucking feelings, and against her better judgement, she summoned Eist to her castle. Again.

“Wondering whether I missed you again, your Majesty?” he asked with a grin.

“No. Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“No. I am here because Her Majesty summoned me.”

“Here as in my kingdom, fool.”

Eist’s smile widened. “No. Were you hoping I was?”

Calanthe scoffed. “No,” she said. “But, since you are here, and since you missed me so much, and I do rather enjoy your company, you are welcome to stay in one of the guest rooms here in my castle.”

“I thought you didn’t miss me.”

“I didn’t. It’s hardly been two weeks. But you are an honored guest, and you seem to be visiting quite often. I cannot have you show up in my city twice a month and force you to put up with subpar sleeping accommodations. You are always welcome in Cintra, honorable Eist Tuirseach.” She smirked. “Even if you are a fool.”

“Thank you, Queen Calanthe. It would be my honor to stay here as a guest of the mightiest and most beautiful Queen on the Continent.”

Calanthe willed her face to stay neutral despite the flare of familiar mixed emotions rising up inside her at the compliment (anger, at the idea that he was flirting with her; pride, knowing she  _ was  _ beautiful and that was simply the truth; attraction, which she refused to linger on the reasons for; more anger, at the fact that there was attraction, and at Destiny, for making him her soulmate, making it dangerous for her to act on that attraction). “Good,” she said. “You may retrieve your things, and I will have someone show you to a room.”

Eist bowed before making his exit. “I hope to see you around, my Queen.” It was most likely a trick of the light, but Calanthe thought she saw him wink, and oh gods, she hated his flirtatious manner, hated how hard it was to hate compared with the flirtatious manners of other men who combined their flirtation with complete and utter disrespect for her authority, hated how it made her want to push him up against the wall and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, made her want to bite his stupid golden lips, made her want to tear off all his fucking clothes, made her want to knock him down onto the ground and fuck him right there, privacy be damned.

If they hadn’t been soulmates, she thought, she’d have fucked him by now. To her, it seemed as if Destiny had screwed itself over, which she counted as a personal victory. This was the exact opposite of how the kings of legends would end up bringing about the horrible events of a prophecy by whatever action they took to avoid it. By making Calanthe and Eist soulmates, Destiny had indeed made it less likely for them to be together, physically, romantically, or in whatever way Destiny wanted them together.

Yes, Calanthe was definitely winning this battle, she thought, ignoring the persistent voice in her head (and the complementary warmth in her stomach and between her legs) screaming at her to just go fuck this man.

* * *

Eist had not expected to take Calanthe up on her offer of a guest room in the castle on his future visits to Cintra—the tavern was usually closer to where he needed to be and further from the soulmate he was trying very hard (and failing) not to develop feelings for—but the place seemed overcrowded, and he had the passing thought that it would be rude to decline hospitality, especially from a Queen.

Yes, that was why he found himself heading for the castle that afternoon, because accepting the offer of a place to stay was the polite thing to do. Not because he wanted to see her. Which he did. But that was not why he went to the castle.

When he arrived, he was surprised to be greeted after a few minutes by Queen Calanthe herself. Even more so when she informed him that there was a feast that night for Princess Pavetta’s fourteenth birthday, and that Calanthe would be honored if he would attend.

Eist agreed—once again, purely because it was the polite thing to do. Not at all because he was looking for an excuse to spend more time with Calanthe. He was not looking for an excuse to spend more time with Calanthe. He was not complaining about having one, but he was not looking for one. And he was only doing this to be polite.

Ah, fuck, why was he lying to himself? Calanthe was adamant that she did not want a courtship, or an affair, or even a friendship, or anything that might support the idea that they were soulmates. Eist was apprehensive about, but not strictly opposed to, the idea of a courtship or an affair, but with her… he was so enraptured by her, he would take what he could get from their friendly acquaintanceship, or whatever they had.

He sighed to himself. Well, shit, this was happening.

* * *

Deep down, Calanthe knew that inviting Eist to sit by her side at the feast would just be one more in a series of very, very bad decisions she’d made this year regarding her soulmate (the first one being summoning him when she’d caught sight of his ship in the early spring only to end up flirting with him, and the most recent one being inviting him to the feast in the first place). She was trying to avoid him, damnit! How did this keep happening? Well, she decided, enough was enough. This annoying attraction she had to her soulmate—it was time to put it to an end. She would not look at him. She would not think about him. She would not invite him to sit by her side at the feast that night.

Naturally, when evening rolled around, she found herself inviting him to sit by her side at the feast.

_ Fuck. _

In her defense, she only did it because upon seeing all the faces of the lords and ladies beginning to crowd into the hall, most of whom she did not particularly like and only tolerated for the sake of duty or not starting any inconvenient wars, she found that she could not stand to engage in unnecessary conversation with any one of them, and decided that the only person she was willing to converse with was Eist Tuirseach, whose cracks at humor were actually bearable and occasionally even funny.

This led her to the appalling conclusion that she actually  _ liked  _ the man. That neither her thoughts nor her feelings about him were neutral, as she had hoped to keep them. Calanthe was fond of Eist, and she could no longer run from this horrifying reality.

_ Fuck. _

Actually, ‘fuck’ was an understatement.

Or, she thought, as her eyes roamed down the length of his body, maybe ‘fuck’ was—

No. No. No, no, no, that was not—no. No! She was not doing this. She was not dealing with this. This was not happening. Not tonight. Gods, having him sit next to her was a mistake.

At least she could avoid looking at him if she kept her head facing forward, she reasoned, and she continued to tell herself this, as it allowed her to pretend that the seating arrangement was informed by her highly successful attempts to avoid her feelings rather than her failure to avoid said feelings. This was a triumph, she decided. He was outside her area of vision, so she would not have to look at him, and with Pavetta and several others at her other side, she would not have to speak with him unless she was truly desperate.

Considering how quickly she became truly desperate, the victory was short-lived.

Pavetta had hardly set down her fork before she was inevitably asked to dance (it being her birthday feast and all), and everyone else on the left side of the head table was so thoroughly drunk at that point that Calanthe didn’t even want to bother. Eist caught on to Calanthe’s lack of conversation partners almost instantly, because of course he did, because Calanthe just wasn’t allowed to catch a break. “Quite the shindig, your Majesty,” he said. 

Calanthe’s eyes drifted to the side to look at him, but she did not turn her head.

“Makes me wonder what you must have in store for next year.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“I recall you mentioning that Pavetta’s fifteenth would be a significant event,” he said, trying and mostly failing to sound nonchalant.

“Did I?” she asked, also trying and also failing to sound nonchalant.

“I believe so, yes.”

“Then you must also remember why next year is so important.”

“Remind me again.”

She could barely make out his grin through the corner of her eye, but frustration still bubbled up inside her at the sight of it. There were several things she wanted to do to get that annoying smile off his face…

Half of those thoughts she quickly pushed away. She allowed herself to indulge for a split second in the fantasy of punching him in the face or kicking his leg, hard, beneath the table, before forcing herself to focus on maintaining composure and etiquette for the rest of the evening.

“You don’t remember?” she asked.

“Afraid not.” That stupid fucking grin.

“So you have no recollection of that conversation at all, including the part where you proposed to me? If you truly do not remember making such a serious offer, such a serious request, that significantly detracts from my opinion of you. I will not negotiate an alliance with someone who cannot remember the arrangements he proposes. As for the specifics of your proposal, you made certain promises, and if you cannot remember them, how should I expect you to keep them? Do not make promises you can’t keep, Eist Tuirseach.”

The gravity in her tone got him to stop grinning, and Calanthe felt a small rush of satisfaction. She spoke again before he had the chance to try and redeem himself. “You can drop the act, Eist.” This time she did turn her head, just slightly, to face him. “It’s cute,” she continued with a hint of a smirk, “but my patience is limited.”

“I promised I would never overshadow you,” he muttered. “And I intend to keep that promise, whether you accept my proposal or not.”

“I already told you, my answer is no.”

“Well, I’m asking again. Will you marry me?” He dropped his voice to a whisper to avoid being overheard.

“No.”

“It would be a highly convenient arrangement.”

Calanthe raised her goblet to her lips and drained its contents. “Convenient for you, not so much for me.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. And more convenient for both of us if you would shut up and agree to an arranged marriage between your nephew and my Pavetta.”

“How so?”

“It is not befitting to discuss such private matters at an event like this. I suggest you think on it, and we may discuss further at another time.”

“I will consider it.” 

Calanthe almost sighed in relief. 

“If you also consider my proposal.”

She clenched her fist beneath the table. Gods, this man. She had dealt with men who proposed multiple times and seemed to ignore her when she repeatedly rejected them before, had even done it without violence, much to her displeasure. But Eist was very possibly the most infuriating. Not because he was disrespectful or a nightmare to be around—quite the opposite, it was because he was a temptation, and her ability to resist was growing weaker, and she couldn’t stand it. She wanted to punch something, or someone. Why did Eist Tuirseach being a little shit just make her want to fuck him more?

A marriage with him was something she would never consider. But she could pretend to, for the sake of her kingdom’s future, of Pavetta’s future, if it meant he would consider the arrangement she was trying to make. “Fine,” she conceded through gritted teeth.

“Then I shall think about your suggestion. But you should know that I will not be in Cintra long, and we may not have a chance to discuss before I leave.”

“If the past few months are anything to go by, I suspect you will be back soon.”

Eist chuckled. “Perhaps I will.”

He did not return to Cintra as soon as Calanthe predicted, but for once, she was glad to be wrong. The strange tension between them was becoming unbearable, and she was grateful to be free of it for some time, even if it was only temporary.

(At some point, it would have to end, would have to be resolved, one way or another. But not yet.)

* * *

The early days of winter finally brought with them an opportunity for Eist to visit Cintra, which, despite wanting to avoid the growing feeling that he was falling in love with a soulmate who hated the idea of soulmates, he gladly took. Before the end of his visit, Calanthe asked to speak with him privately again. 

“Have you given it any more thought?” she asked without preamble.

“Given what any more thought?” He knew exactly what, but he asked anyway.

“Pavetta and Crach. Seen reason yet?”

“Have you?”

She glared at him.

“I see no reason to make an arrangement so soon. A great deal can happen in eight months.”

“All the more reason to.”

Eist tilted his head questioningly, and Calanthe sighed. “The sooner we settle this,” she said, “the less chance there is for your nephew to go off and marry someone else, forcing me to find another suitable husband for my daughter and another way to seal an alliance with Skellige, and the sooner I can tell Pavetta she’s promised to someone so she can stop getting ideas from all those poetry books.”

“I know I’ve said this before, but—”

“No.”

“If you need an alliance—”

“No.”

“Please at least consider it, Calanthe.”

She bit her lip and hesitated, seemingly at war with herself. Then shook her head.

“Why do you insist on it being Crach?”

“Because… an alliance between Cintra and Skellige would benefit us both. And—”

“And?” 

“Pavetta must marry one way or another. I will not have it be with a man who might hurt her.”

“There are many men who would not harm her.”

“There are more who would.”

“Perhaps. But why him?”

“Why are you so reluctant for it to be him?”

“Forgive me for wanting to understand why my rowdy nephew is your first choice for your gentle daughter’s husband!”

Silence hung in the air for a moment.

“He may be rowdy,” Calanthe began, and the words that followed came out slowly, as if she had to force them out of her throat, “but he has a great deal of honor. From what I have seen, you have raised him well.”

The compliment, such a rare thing from Calanthe, startled him.

“And,” she continued, voice sounding pained, “I consider you enough of a friend that I would trust you to set him straight should he do anything unacceptable.”

Inwardly, Eist marvelled at the unexpected revelation that she considered him a friend. He did not dare mention that he considered her a friend as well, that he wanted more, that he suspected she wanted the same. Not when she was this angry (or frustrated, or tense, or afraid, or whatever she was right now). Not when even admitting as much as she did was clearly so difficult for her. Not when the fact that they were soulmates, and the agreement that they would not pursue Destiny, stood like a wall between them.

“I understand,” he said instead. “You failed to mention he’s also terrified of you.”

He offered her a small smile, which, to his relief, she returned.

“I will speak to Crach about it.”

“Promise me you’ll get him to agree to this.”

“I promise.”

“Thank you, Eist.”

The genuine gratitude sounded foreign on her tongue, unusually soft for the Lioness. He wanted to reach out and touch her, just to hold her hand, or pull her into his arms, but the simple intimacy scared him, more so because he knew it would scare her so much more. So, he contented himself with staring into her eyes just a moment too long before she told him, still in a much softer voice than he was used to hearing from her, that he could return to his rooms.

Knowing that the tenderness between them was fragile, and not wanting to risk breaking it so soon, Eist willed himself not to look back at Calanthe after he turned to go back through the door.

(Calanthe was absolutely  _ not _ willing to confront or even think about her softer, more romantic feelings at that moment, but she would admit to herself—and no one else—that she was totally staring at his ass as he walked out.)

* * *

The morning after Eist had been set to return to Skellige, Calanthe was relieved to be able to walk through her castle corridors without having to worry about any inconvenient encounters with her inconvenient soulmate producing any inconvenient feelings, and was caught completely off-guard by an inconvenient encounter with her inconvenient soulmate and all of the inconvenient feelings it produced.

“Eist,” she greeted him in surprise. “I thought you and your crew were going to set sail yesterday.”

“We were. But these are no conditions to sail in, so we’ve had to delay our return to Skellige.”

“Is the Sea Hound of Skellige not mighty enough to sail through a storm?” Calanthe tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice, knowing it was selfish. She had told him he was always welcome in Cintra, and she stood by that. Reluctantly, she had to admit that she enjoyed his company. 

But at the same time, she loathed being around him. He made her feel all sorts of things—lust, yes, that had been there since before her hand touched his lips, but recently she had begun to feel a strange sort of softness as well that was far too romantic for her tastes—and she loathed how vulnerable it felt.

“We could sail through the storm, but we have no reason to rush. Seems pointless to take the risk.”

Calanthe nodded, knowing he was right. “As always, you are welcome to stay here. How much longer will you be in Cintra?”

“At the very least, a week. Two, more likely.”

She bit back a frustrated groan. Two weeks? He had only ever been in Cintra for a few days at a time, and that had made it easier for her to restrain herself, knowing it was only for a little bit longer that she had to put up with looking at that fucking face and oh, that fucking  _ body _ , only for a little bit longer that she had to actively push back on her desires before the object of them was safely across the sea. But two weeks… gods, she was so, so fucked.

Destiny was probably smirking right now. Not for the first time, Calanthe thought that Destiny ought to go fuck itself.

* * *

Calanthe could not seem to avoid Eist. Somehow, they kept running into each other, and it seemed like the more Calanthe tried to avoid it, the more it happened. It simply did not make sense. She lived in a  _ fucking castle _ . How could it possibly be this hard to avoid one soulmate in a  _ giant fucking castle _ ?

Oh, screw Destiny, always screwing her over. And making her want to screw Eist. Why did she even want that?

She needed to clear her head. At the end of a corridor on the second highest level of the keep, there was an open space that hadn’t quite been a room since the doors had had to be knocked down some decades ago and no one had ever cared to replace them, but it had a fairly large window overlooking Cintra from a completely different angle than the window in Calanthe’s own room. Even now, at night, when it was too dark to enjoy the view, the emptiness of the space and the change in what silhouettes of a landscape she would see when she glanced outside were strangely comforting.

Calanthe took a deep breath, tried to collect her thoughts.

Then she heard footsteps.

Instinctively, she drew a dagger, whipped around and searched the dim chamber for any sign of movement. Then, silently, carefully, stalked in the direction of the open archway leading through to the corridor.

She was certain she heard footsteps then, approaching her. She tensed, preparing to strike. 

A familiar face—a  _ very frustratingly  _ familiar face—came into view. Eist seemed to startle at the sight of her ready to attack. Calanthe lowered her dagger and sighed in annoyance.

“What are you doing here, Eist?”

“Sleepless.” A pause. “What about you?”

“It’s my own bloody castle. I can go wherever I please.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“And?”

“Why are you awake?”

“Mind your own business.”

“Sorry.” He lowered his gaze. “Your Majesty.”

Calanthe relaxed at that, just slightly. “Why are you here?”

“As I said, sleepless.”

She all but rolled her eyes. “Yes, but why come up here of all places?”

Eist gestured to the window. “You can see the sea sometimes. I missed the sound of the waves. Don’t often sleep without it.”

“There’s a tavern near the shore. Why not stay there?”

“Bigger beds,” he said. Then, with a smile, “And better company.”

“What, you think I choose to be around you all the time?” she laughed, somewhat bitterly.

“Seems like it lately.”

“Does it?”

“You did say I was welcome to stay in your castle whenever I was in Cintra.”

Calanthe made a small noncommital noise of agreement.

“And I see you more often than I would expect these days.”

“I haven’t been intentionally seeking you out, if that’s what you’re implying.”

He paused. Calanthe wanted to turn away—he was looking into her eyes, and because he was taller he had to look down at her, and his gaze was so, so gentle, and she hated it—but then he said, “If you would prefer I stayed in the tavern, I will be out of your castle by morning.”

“No.”

“If you don’t enjoy my company—”

“I do.” It was true, but her tone said otherwise.

“Then what is it?”

She did turn away then, unable to bear how desperate he sounded, how he truly seemed to care about her approval, truly seemed to enjoy their time together, how willing he was to do whatever she preferred him to do, and not just because she was Queen and could have him beheaded for whatever reason she saw fit. Beyond the question he asked, there was an unspoken question of ‘do you want me?’, and fuck it, she couldn’t delude herself anymore—the answer was yes, yes, she wanted him, his body and his heart. 

But she was still not willing to give in to Destiny. Even despite the aching in her chest that she suspected could only be cured by his embrace. It was all she could do to resist the temptation to throw her arms around him and kiss him senseless, so she focused her attention on tracing the design of the arch of the window with her eyes as she said, “You know bloody well what.”

“Calanthe,” he asked gently, and she silently cursed him for saying her name like that, like she wanted to hear it a million times over on his lips, “is this about us being soulmates?”

“Yes!” she snapped.

The silence stretched out too long. Calanthe took a step towards the window for fear that he would see she was trembling.

“I understand your concerns about Destiny,” Eist said finally, “but—”

“Do you?” she bit back.

“Perhaps not. But Destiny is not something that can be avoided.”

“Is it not? I’d say we’re living proof that it can be avoided.”

“I disagree.”

The words startled her for some reason, and she turned halfway to look back at him over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow and a little bit of fury.

He sighed. “Forget about Destiny for now,” he said. “There could be something more between us. Whatever that looks like, I want it. And I suspect you do as well.” His voice softened. “We can’t keep dancing around each other like this forever, Calanthe.”

Calanthe bit her lip. For once, she felt a flicker of doubt that hiding from Destiny like she had been was the right thing to do. But she pushed it aside and declared, “We can. And we will.”

Before he could respond, she strode past him to return to her chambers, ignoring how the slight contact between their arms when she brushed past him left her itching for more.

The next morning, the weather had cleared enough for Eist and his men to sail back to Skellige, and by the time Calanthe got out of bed, their ship had left the harbor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY FOR ENDING IT THERE BUT LIKE... NOT REALLY
> 
> i am VERY excited to write the next chapter which will be the last full chapter and the climax (not just plotwise ;)). chapter 5 will be a very short epilogue which is already written so next time i update there will be a beautiful green check mark in the,,, square thingy,, idk what it's called
> 
> thank you very much for reading and especially to the commenters, i love you all !!


	4. 1249

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally finally finally
> 
> sorry this took like a month and a half but here it is! as usual this has not even been read by me. it is barely written. but it is written!

**1249**

For the next several months, Eist avoided Cintra. He was successful, too—for the most part, he managed to stay away from Cintra, from his soulmate, from the woman whom he wanted more than anything but who seemed dead set on refusing him no matter what, no matter how much it hurt both of them for her to do so.

He could not stay away forever, though. Not even just until Pavetta’s banquet. He only had to stay in Cintra for one night, and he even considered staying at an inn just to make sure he would not run into the Queen, only decided against it because he did not want to disrespect her by refusing her offer of hospitality. It was only one night, he thought, one night in a large castle, and Queen Calanthe was certainly busy anyway. It was highly unlikely that their paths would cross.

Of course, Destiny did not care about probability, and conspired with the hallways and corridors of the castle to make sure Eist did encounter the very person he was trying to avoid.

“Eist—” Calanthe began.

“I am only in Cintra for one night. I promise I will not bother you with my presence.” He gave a quick, formal bow and moved to walk past her.

“Eist, wait.”

Eist kept walking.

“I could have you thrown in the dungeons for disobeying a direct order from the Queen,” she called after him.

At that, he did stop and turn around. “Throw me in the dungeons, then.”

Calanthe was too stunned to respond.

* * *

When Eist returned to his guest chambers that night, he found the Queen of Cintra waiting for him, sitting on the edge of the bed, an almost empty goblet of wine in her hand. He noticed that she had forgone her usual gloves, leaving the mark on her hand exposed, but tired from his journey and tired of whatever it was they were doing, constantly interacting and acting as if there was nothing between them, he thought little of it.

“Your Majesty,” he sighed, “I—”

“I’m not here to fight,” she interjected. Eist fell silent. “As much as it pains me to admit—” she sighed—“you were right. We can’t keep dancing around each other like this forever.”

Calanthe stood up from the bed, setting her goblet down on the nearest table, and walked toward him, utterly confident in what she was doing. She did not sway her hips, or smile, or in any way attempt to put on a seductive demeanor, but the way she stared—somehow both vulnerable and closed-off, but mostly _burning_ —had an effect on him nonetheless.

This was the woman they called the Lioness.

When she reached Eist, who was still standing just in front of the door, she grabbed his tunic and pulled him in for a kiss. He responded almost instantly, closing his eyes and pressing his lips against hers with just as much urgency, his hand reaching out and hovering at her side, unsure of whether to touch her.

The kiss ended after only a moment. She drew back her head slightly to look into his eyes, but she kept her hand where it was, kept her body close. 

His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and then they were kissing again, passionately, her tongue licking into his mouth as she pushed him back against the door, a small sound escaping his throat in response. His hands found her hips, quickly moved to her back where the laces on her dress were as Calanthe wasted no time in unbuttoning his tunic and roughly pushing it off his shoulders, running her nails up and down his chest, pressing just hard enough that he could feel her nails more than the ripples they caused in the thin fabric of his shirt, sending shivers through his body along with a surge of heat. Eist moaned into her mouth (gods, the things she was doing with her teeth) as her hands trailed down to the laces on his breeches. She took a moment to touch him through the fabric before beginning to undo them; Eist cried out softly, head falling back against the hard wooden door, and started working his own hands more insistently at Calanthe’s dress, but Calanthe was faster, and as soon as the garment pooled around his feet, as soon as he slipped his ankles free of it, kicking off his shoes in the process, she was guiding him roughly to lay back on the bed, and everything about her left him burning, burning and both powerless and unwilling not to do exactly as she directed him.

Calanthe removed her dress as quickly as possible. It fell unceremoniously to the floor. She stood there, flushed, bare except for a thin, almost transparent underdress, and Eist couldn’t help but stare. Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe her.

“Calanthe…”

“What?”

“Fuck,” he murmured breathlessly.

“That is the idea, yes,” she said with a smirk and a roll of her eyes.

He returned the smirk and raised an eyebrow. “Well? What are you waiting for, then?”

The look in his eyes was pure lust, and it only intensified the wonderful, maddening heat concentrating between her thighs.

The smirk vanished from her face. Staring him down hungrily, Calanthe climbed on top of him and crashed their lips together, hovering over him so that no other parts of their bodies touched, teasing. She kissed him deeply, as if she could devour him through his mouth; his mouth opened easily, willingly, gladly letting her devour. It earned him a hand at his cheek, stroking along his jawline, and he let out a sigh. His body arched upwards, seeking out hers, but was quickly met by the hand at his jaw moving to press down on his chest, pinning him in place. The firm pressure of her palm drew out a moan at the delightful mix of frustration and pleasure.

Despite her refusal to let him move his body against hers, the Queen was merciful; she lowered herself down just enough to tease herself against the tip of him, knowing it would give him as much pleasure as it gave her, knowing it would let him feel just how wet she was; her lips attached themselves to his shoulder, the side of his neck, his jaw, his ear, intent on finding and conquering every spot that made him gasp or moan or cry out if she used her mouth just right (though not unselfishly—she wanted to take back a bit of the control she felt she was losing, wanted to see him just as utterly wrecked as she felt).

His hands came up to hold her hips; they drifted around to rest on her ass, to which she gave a satisfied hum and arched up into his touch, so he squeezed lightly, pressed down slightly, trying to guide her hips closer to his.

“Impatient, are we?”

“Calanthe,” he breathed out desperately.

She bit his lip, savored the sound he made in response, stayed still for a moment, just long enough for him to start to squirm, then sank down on him all at once, silenced his scream with her mouth on his.

Once his scream died down, Calanthe drew back, let out a low moan, opened her eyes halfway, only to close them again at the look of sheer pleasure on Eist’s face. It was a beautiful sight, and an arousing one, but there were those damn golden lips, reminders of Destiny she couldn’t ignore, and in that moment, she was far too caught up in sensation to think about such things; there was no way she was able to think about Destiny when she did not have the clarity of mind to process any thoughts beyond ‘fuck.’ So, she kept her eyes closed as she began to move, to seek out more pleasure, trying to get as much of it as possible from this encounter with the dim awareness that she may never allow herself to do this—that is, do him—again.

In the end, all she really remembered was the feeling. Feeling a little bit out of control. Feeling like she might die if she had to see him in Cintra and restrain herself from having him one more time. Feeling him inside her. Feeling his rough hands move to her hips, her thighs, thumbs brushing the more sensitive skin of her inner thighs, driving her wild. Feeling the dryness at the back of her throat that followed the sounds that tore from her as she came. Feeling his release follow not long after her own.

Afterwards, Calanthe all but collapsed onto him. She allowed herself to stay there for a few seconds, no more, just long enough for her to catch her breath and for her mind to regain some clarity and for her racing heartbeat to slow down a bit, before rolling off of him. She ought to get up, put on her dress, cordially say good night and return to her own chamber before it was too late to do so without rumors beginning to spread—but it was a losing battle against the desire she had been fighting for so long, the desire for something she had just gotten a taste of, and having had that taste, to get up and leave and deprive herself of this forever felt impossible. It was all she could do to try not to reach out, to keep her eyes fixed on the ceiling when Eist turned his head to look at her, the warmth in his gaze palpable and enough to make her limbs so heavy they anchored her to the bed, even if she could only see him in her periphery.

Fuck, this had been a bad idea.

“You will be here with your nephew for Pavetta’s banquet, yes?” she said, hoping to end the conversation about what had just happened between them before it started, before she could lose control of herself and do something she would regret, like curl up into his side or kiss him gently, like say she loved him and surrender to Destiny and the dangerous vulnerability of such emotions, like say she didn’t love him or feel anything for him at all and win her fight against Destiny at the price of losing a friend.

“Yes. The lad is looking forward to it.”

“Good. If you don’t show up, then I suppose I’ll have to marry you.” The words came out much less threatening than she intended.

“Will you?”

“Don’t even think about it, Tuirseach. I’ll make your life a living hell, I promise you that.”

“I have no doubt you will.”

They were silent for a moment, and Calanthe hated how easy it felt to settle in to the comfortable intimacy of simply laying there together.

“You can sleep here, if you’d like,” said Eist gently.

Calanthe scoffed. “Of course I can. It’s my own bloody castle.”

He chuckled.

This felt safe, Calanthe thought, safe in that some parts of the familiar tension between them were still there, but also safe in that she felt she was beginning to trust him, and that terrified her. She quickly closed her eyes, as if to shield herself from whatever feelings might bubble up to the surface if she looked at him, and did not open them until she was certain he was asleep.

For most of the night, she lay awake, mind and heart racing with thoughts of the man beside her.

She made sure that by the time he woke, she was gone.

* * *

They did not see each other again until the banquet. They did not send letters either. Calanthe firmly told herself that the only reason the sex had been so good was because of all the tension that had built up between them over three years, that it had nothing to do with soulmates or Destiny, and that it had nothing to do with the softer feelings she was still firmly trying to ignore either.

Obviously, this was all a load of bullshit, and Calanthe never quite managed to fool herself. Almost, but not quite. Still, unwilling to give Destiny the satisfaction, she resolved that it would not happen again. Nothing had been said that night. Nothing important. She had conceded that they could not keep dancing around each other forever, conceded that something had to be done about the maddening tension between them. She had not conceded to the more frightening aspects of her desire, to the little voice in her head that asked her when she laid awake at his side in the hours before dawn, what if you can have this forever, what if you can have more, the voice that begged her to let herself fall. She would not concede to that.

She managed to avoid Eist during the few hours after he arrived in the city and before he formally entered the great hall at the start of the banquet. Given that she could not have avoided him for such an extended period of time when he had visited the previous winter if she’d tried—and she had—Calanthe considered this a promising start to the day with regards to her ongoing battle against Destiny.

Then, the herald announced the Skelligens, and as soon as she laid eyes on Eist, it was like every inch of her body was on fire, and everything came crashing down. Metaphorically. Because what else did she expect at this point, really?

The truth was that she wanted him. Physically, yes, she’d long since resigned herself to that—and in every other way. She wanted to wake up with his warm body beside her. She wanted him by her side during the day. She wanted to hold him, wanted him to hold her. She wanted—fuck, she wanted everything.

But she would not, could not, give in to that want, no matter how desperate it grew. Destiny had not taken anything from her yet, but it had already taken far too much for her to trust it.

Fortunately, she was distracted before Eist could say anything to her and tempt her into doing something that would ultimately lead to her losing her ongoing battle against Destiny by the arrival of the bard and, as Mousesack loudly announced to the entire banquet hall, the Witcher. She had hoped to keep quiet the Witcher’s presence at the feast when she had asked the bard to bring him along, but he would be able to do his job just as well without the anonymity.

Geralt of Rivia continued to be a good distraction for the first part of the evening, providing far more interesting conversation than most of the nobles she had invited (except perhaps Eist, but the goal was to avoid talking to him). 

Unfortunately, good conversation was no indication of whether the Witcher could actually do his fucking job. (Spoiler alert: he couldn’t.)

Queen Calanthe had expected the knight to come barging in uninvited. She had expected to see a hedgehog head when his helmet was removed. She had expected him to claim the Law of Surprise. She had expected a bit of violence.

She had not expected the Witcher to take Urcheon’s side.

She had not expected Eist to take Urcheon’s side, to tell her that the promise must be kept, to ask her, very seriously, “Or am I to understand that you treat all promises this lightly, including those which have etched themselves so deeply in my memory?”

She had not expected the tears that stung at the corners of her eyes when he did. (Even if she had expected him to say that, she would not have expected his words to hurt so much. But then again, she had never expected to fail at something so utterly as she had failed not to fall in love with him.)

She had not expected Pavetta—sweet Pavetta—to say, with uncharacteristic confidence, that she wanted to go with Duny, that she wanted to marry him, to say that he was her destiny, to push her dress off of one shoulder to reveal a golden mark in the shape of someone’s fingers.

Duny, following her lead, removed one of his gauntlets (to Calanthe’s minor relief, he did not drop it), and held up his palm, showing the gold on his fingers, the proof that Destiny had chosen him for Pavetta and Pavetta for him.

Calanthe wanted to believe it was a lie, wanted to believe it was some trick with golden paint or a mere coincidence that Pavetta and the hedgehog man had marks that lined up, but they matched too perfectly, down to the curve of the edge where the neckline of Pavetta’s dress must have been. The truth was that at this point, there was very little Calanthe could do to keep them apart.

But she could try. 

It certainly wasn’t ideal, but she had one last trick up her sleeve. Or rather, one last dagger hidden in her gown. (More than one dagger, really, but that was just to have a backup weapon; it only took one knife to deal a fatal stab wound if you knew what you were doing.)

Her dagger was at his throat, and Pavetta screamed, and everything came crashing down. Literally this time.

The Force erupting from Pavetta threw everyone but her and Duny backwards; tables and chairs and benches were knocked down and some fell to splinters; a whirlwind began, tossing bits of rubble around the room, leaving people desperately clinging to the floor or the walls or whatever they could manage to hang onto while Pavetta stood, perfectly calm, in the eye of the storm, holding a slightly bewildered Duny’s hand in hers and muttering in Elder speech.

Calanthe hit the ground hard. There would be bruises later. Right now, there was Eist, and Calanthe didn’t know how he got to her in the midst of the chaos, but that was the last thing on her mind as he threw an arm around her, shielded her with his body, asked, “My Queen, are you alright?”

She could not answer him, could only stare in awe at Pavetta over his shoulder. Calanthe had seen magic before, had even seen it on a greater scale than this, but seeing it come from her daughter filled her with a new degree of amazement and fear.

_Alright_ , she thought. Destiny had made itself clear. It was time to give in. Time to stop moving. Perhaps she was not able to stop Pavetta from being with her hedgehog knight. But she could at least stop herself from losing Pavetta. Let the girl marry who she wanted, try to control the damage.

As for the alliance with Skellige… well, Eist had already proposed an arrangement for that, and he was proposing again, whispering in her ear, “Pavetta’s as stubborn as her mother—” somehow, he made it sound like a compliment—“she won’t agree to marry anyone else. Marry me. Please,” and everything inside her was screaming at her to say yes, and for a moment, she wondered, was this Destiny’s way of forcing her hand? Was this Destiny’s way of forcing them together?

Then, he was whispering in her ear again, and the sound of his voice regardless of what he was saying was more comforting than she would have liked to admit, and he was saying, “I love you.”

This was not Destiny’s doing, she realized. Perhaps it had worked out in Destiny’s favor, yes, but it was not Destiny’s way of forcing her hand, of forcing them together.

Destiny could give you a soulmate. Destiny could determine who was meant to be in your life. Destiny could even force them into your life. But Destiny could not force you to love them.

Eist was already in her life. She could blame Destiny for that much. But Destiny had not forced him to love her. Destiny had not forced her to love him either. She had fallen into it accidentally, despite all her efforts not to, and she was beginning to realize that perhaps this love was a good thing. Perhaps this love was safe to fall into. She had feared being married to her soulmate, long before she knew she had one, had feared a soulmate would feel entitled to more power in the name of Destiny, but the way Eist said, _“marry me, please,”_ the way he looked at her, the way he was shielding her with his body, the way he—fuck, he’d lain beneath her the night she’d finally given in to her desire to fuck him, and he’d seemed to enjoy it more than she did, if that was even possible—he was not asking for power. He was asking for her.

And if giving herself to him came with the convenience of an alliance with Skellige and the inconvenience of having to surrender to Destiny, well, there were upsides and downsides to everything.

Suddenly, the whirlwind stopped. 

Eist’s hand was at her back, supporting her as she sat up, and he was looking at her very seriously, but without criticism, despite how he clearly disagreed with her refusal to let Pavetta go with Duny up until that point; looking at her like she was the most important thing in the room.

(On another day, she would have jerked away from him, would have insisted she didn’t need to be supported, would have insisted she didn’t need his gaze to remind her of her own importance. Today, she was merely grateful to have him by her side.)

After a brief but meaningful glance at her soulmate, Queen Calanthe approached Pavetta, wrapped the girl in her arms, all but collapsed into her embrace, held her close.

She would not, could not, lose her daughter to Destiny. Not tonight. Not ever.

“I thought your grandmother’s gift had skipped you, as it did me,” she breathed out, taking a step back to look at Pavetta properly. (She had grown far more than Calanthe had realized, in so many ways, and Calanthe wondered fleetingly whether she had already lost her, not to Destiny but to her own stubbornness.) “It seems I was wrong. About so many things.”

Careful not to be too conspicuous about it, Calanthe removed her gloves and tucked them away into one of the hidden pockets of her gown where she kept her daggers, but curled her right hand so as to conceal the mark on her fingers.

“Destiny has spoken, and I have listened. Pavetta will marry Lord Urcheon,” she announced. 

Pavetta, beaming, rushed into Duny’s arms. A few people murmured and whispered to each other. The voices grew louder when Calanthe unfurled her hand, extended it towards Eist Tuirseach, palm facing down so the golden mark shimmered in the dim light, and offered him a small smile. She found she didn’t care much what they were saying. She could barely hear them over the sound of her heart beating in her chest.

Eist tilted his head in a silent question, taking a step forward.

Calanthe nodded, just slightly, not enough to be obvious to everyone but enough to give him his answer.

Eist came closer, stood by her side, and took her hand. “React poorly,” he said to the crowd of guests, “and you won’t just face the Lioness, but the Sea Hounds of Skellige, because Queen Calanthe has agreed to my proposal of marriage.”

Calanthe smiled at him, and for a moment, everything was alright.

Until it wasn’t.

A series of events happened very quickly, too quickly for Calanthe to fully comprehend as they were happening.

The Witcher. Duny. The Law of Surprise. Pavetta. A child.

“Get out,” snarled the Queen.

* * *

Calanthe was trembling with rage.

Pavetta’s soon-to-be-husband had given away what was not his to give, promised Pavetta’s child to someone else without so much as a questioning glance to Pavetta herself. It was exactly what that idiot Roegner had done to Calanthe, giving away Pavetta to a man who saved his life when he ought to have stayed where he was and died.

And Pavetta still loved Duny. Still wanted him as her husband, even with what he had just done. Because he was her fucking soulmate. All this because of the Law of Surprise, and because of stupid fucking Destiny.

“Calanthe,” said Eist tentatively, “what is it?” They were the only two left in the—well, what used to be the grand hall, and he was growing concerned with the charged silence and the way she was shaking.

“Destiny,” said Calanthe, and the bitterness in her tone told him all he needed to know.

“Destiny is only what you make of it. You could have lost Pavetta to the Law of Surprise, but you chose to let her marry who she wanted, let her stay with you in Cintra, and she is still with you because of it. Destiny does not mean you don’t have a choice.”

Calanthe did not want to have her anger at Destiny calmed. Perhaps she had conceded that Destiny was inevitable, but she did not accept Destiny, would never accept Destiny, and in her current furious state, was ready to stab anyone who told her she should accept Destiny.

Still, she found Eist’s words soothing. She allowed her jaw to unclench, allowed her shoulders to relax, allowed her gaze to soften as she looked at him.

“You chose to marry me,” Eist continued.

“To save my kingdom,” Calanthe retorted weakly.

He let out an exhale, half laugh, half sigh, shook his head slightly. “You chose to marry me,” he repeated, something desperate in his voice, “and—and though it would break my heart if you said it was purely political, you still have a choice—however you want me—”

Calanthe felt helpless, and for once it was not in the face of Destiny, but in the face of Eist Tuirseach so openly handing her his heart despite her stubborn refusal to even let him near hers. What other choice could she possibly make when her heart was screaming, begging to be torn out of her chest and placed in his hands? 

She leaned up and kissed him, needing to silence his desperate ramblings, needing to soothe her own aching heart. 

The kiss was a relief, like the feeling of finally being able to breathe, and it left her breathless.

He responded instantly, wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her back, leaned into her touch where her hand was resting against the curve of his jaw, massaging lightly as she delighted in the texture of his stubble against her palm. The weight of his face pressing into her hand was light, but it was a sign that he wanted this, needed this, this warm and solid reassurance that they were there, that all the wild emotions were real and requited and not just signs of insanity; it was a sign that he needed this reassurance as much as she suddenly realized she did, and providing it in her touch was as much of a relief as receiving it in his.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“To everything. I want everything.”

A brilliant smile broke out on his face, and Calanthe couldn’t help but smile back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more notes at the end of the next chapter :)


	5. epilogue

**1250**

“Why do you hate Duny so much, Mother?” asked Pavetta.

“He promised your daughter to a Witcher. I don’t understand how you expect me to forgive him for that. I don’t understand how  _ you  _ can forgive him for that. After what your stupid father did… I cannot bear to lose another one of my cubs to the Law of Surprise.”

Pavetta shrugged shyly. “Destiny has a way of working things out. It did for me and Duny.” Then, in a softer voice, “And for you and Eist.”

Calanthe smiled slightly. “You think it will work things out for Ciri?”

“Yes.”

She was tempted to chide Pavetta for being too optimistic, which perhaps she was, but Calanthe also had to admit that her daughter had a point. Destiny had worked out for her and Eist, she couldn’t deny that. Although Calanthe still did not trust Duny in the slightest, Pavetta seemed happy with him, and Destiny bringing them together had gotten her a granddaughter.

And looking at Eist holding a baby Ciri in his arms, lifting her high up and bringing her back down to his chest as the child giggled and squealed, she couldn’t help but feel incredibly soft, and for once she didn’t mind. If Destiny had given her this, Calanthe thought, then maybe Destiny wasn’t the little bitch she had made it out to be after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so not to furryshame pavetta or anything but to be clear i do NOT support duny or pavetta/duny; the only reason they're soulmates is because duny claiming the law of surprise fucked with Destiny. anyway no one dies tragically because it’s my au and i say so. i’d come up with an alternate series of events but ap exams consumed the last of my brain cells so what happens exactly is up to you
> 
> thank you so so so much for reading 💖💖 i hope this was as much fun to read as it was to write!!!

**Author's Note:**

> hope that everyone is doing okay and if not that things get better soon 💖💖
> 
> i will try to update this at some point


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